Here is one excerpt. The question asked was in 1994 and asked to active duty Marines.

Cunningham’s question: “Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.” The result: “42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion.” This equates to approximately 61% of Marines saying they would defy orders to turn their weapons on US citizens in order to disarm them; 26% saying they would not disobey such orders; and 12% refusing to say one way or the other, which means you could probably add them to the 26% who would not disobey orders to turn their weapons on American citizens.

I still haven’t rec’d an answer from OathKeepers that I asked more than a year ago: Your members promise not to follow unconstitutional orders at some future date, so how do your active duty LEO handle drug cases, 2A cases, do they participate in random violations of 4A…

Funny, I have not seen one report in the media or even on a blog of a LEO resigning rather than violating his oath. When it comes to the military, I would suggest that you hope for the best, and prepare to be fired upon…

And remember Rich T’s comment from another thread (I’m paraphrasing): Do not forget about PMC’s (Private Military Companies) that earn their money from the same people as do LEO and the military.

Another perspective: Even if the US military en toto decided obey unlawful orders requiring the confiscation of civilian weapons, it would mean possibly firing on their own family members. That dynamic alone makes that scenario possible, but not probable. When adding other dynamics not discussed here, the probability is reduced significantly.

When it comes to LEO's, once they do the math, they can easily see they will be seriously isolated, armored vehicles notwithstanding in any scenario of this sort. They need the armed citizenry more than the armed citizenry needs them. And the fact that LEO is only trained in CQB on isolated, secured, unreinforced locations adds to their problems. The Chechens, prior to the Beslan incident, demonstrated what the LEO's might have to go through to confiscate arms.

Regarding armor (usuall this discussion brings up frantic cries of “THEY HAVE ARMOR!”) The paraphprased words attributed to Josef Tito in WWII when asked how he would fight Nazi tanks: “We will follow them. They have to piss some time, and when they get out, we'll kill them.” (paraphrased for expediency)

As far as the “Katrina Mercs” go, God help them. They operate under no lawful authority against the citizenry.

Most soldiers will follow illegal orders because from their point of view, it keeps the food on their family's table. The Milgram Experiment phenomenon is also a factor, where even the best people tend to follow orders blindly.

If you observe Romania in 1989, you will notice that at the start of that conflict, the conscripted soldiers (many of them had no more rights than the average citizen) followed orders to gun their own people down. It was only when the conflict matured that military units became mutinous.